That's Cub!

Unlike 2015 and 2016, when the Cubs were a surging powerhouse, the 2018 Cubs have had to fight and scrap—thanks to a succession of injuries, a couple of disastrous free-agent acquisitions and a Jeckyll and Hyde offense.

But like any good team, they have won even when they weren't at their best. To the point where at this late date, they possess the league's best record. 

But fatigue looms over Wrigley Field like a flock of vultures.

The inexplicable offense, which routinely seizes up like a bum knee, is reason number-one the Cubs have struggled to a thirteen and eleven record this September.

While these Cubs lead the National League in games scoring eight or more runs (34), they also lead the league (and are second in MLB) in games where they were shut-out or only able to manage a single run (35).

And nemesis number-one—the Pittsburgh Pirates—are in town for a four-game series just as the Cubs seek to recover their mojo and snap off a big, fat winning streak.

True to form, the Cubs managed just a single run Monday night, succumbing 5 – 1. And Tuesday night they were shut-out, making it six games in a row the Cubs put up a run or less against the Pirate's staff of apparent Cy Young candidates.

(In fact, nine of the team's nineteen match-ups have found the Cubs unable to manufacture anything but a single run—or less. Predictably, the Cubs are 2 and 7 in those games.)

Less Jeckyll, more Hyde please?

Even when the Cubs got back into the swing of things Wednesday night and put up six runs in the game's first four innings, their other Achilles heel—a ravaged bullpen—surrendered two runs each in the eighth and ninth, necessitating a walk-off single by Albert Almora in the bottom of the tenth to salvage a win.

No wonder I require the presence of an EMT while watching games.

Lack of hitting aside, the starting pitching has been consistent, with late-season addition Cole Hamels adding heft to a rotation weakened by the twin failures of Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood.

But at this critical juncture, the bullpen is minus its two best arms. Brandon Morrow is out for the season with a bicep injury while Pedro Strop recovers from a strained hamstring. If nothing else, September has made clear that the less hitting you have, the more pitching you need.

If this misbegotten sundae of a season even requires a cherry, take your pick between the suspension of shortstop Addison Russell for domestic violence or the ruinous schedule revisions that had the Cubs reporting for thirty games in thirty days.

Sigh.

And yet our heroes remain in first place, albeit by the slimmest-possible margin. They close at home against the St. Louis Cardinals while their primary competition (the Milwaukee Brewers) does so against the Detroit Tigers.

I fight off recurring visions of 1969 and 2003 and focus on the truths uncovered in this season of struggle.

1. Joe Maddon is a great manager. He is perfectly attuned to this generation of ballplayers and knows how to motivate them and keep them listening. Buy-in is always critical for a manager or coach, and it's pretty obvious all concerned reach for their wallets when Maddon has something to say.

Maddon conjures up inventive strategies and isn't afraid to use them. Sure, they don't always work. But neither does my garage door opener. If nothing else, they combat the stress and mental fatigue that can settle at this time of year.

He has his naysayers. But who doesn't? If Strop beats out an infield grounder with the bases loaded and the Cubs win, Maddon's a genius with an otherworldly sense of the game. If Strop pulls a hamstring before he pulls up to first, Maddon's an idiot.

That's the way it goes in the sports racket. It's Maddoning.

I for one love the fact Strop was running his ass off trying to beat it. That speaks to Strop—and Maddon.

2. The Cubs are tough. They are focused. I haven't read of anyone complaining about the brutal late-season schedule, Kris Bryant's injury, Yu Darvish's crash and burn or the intense media crush that speculates about Every Little Thing. Every Day.

The Cubs show up ready to play. And more often than not, battle until the game is over. Best of all, they have bad memories when things go off the rails in an especially gruesome loss.

Tomorrow it's always the top of the first in a zero-zero tie.

3. Because they have struggled and haven't mowed over everyone in their path, a championship would be so much sweeter this year than in 2016.

Next up? Game four with the division rival Pittsburgh Pirates. Game time 7:05 PM CDT.

Go get 'em.

A Star Is Born—for the Fourth Time

The re-make is Hollywood's biggest cliché. Even moreso than sequels and happy endings. And streets wetted down for nighttime shots. Or the inevitable scantily-clad prostitute being paraded by whenever the script calls for a police station interior.

(And while I'm at it, anyone recall a neighborhood shot that didn't include a dog barking in the distance? Me neither.)

The re-make is Hollywood's equivalent of carry-on baggage fees; cash grabs with no reason for being other than to puff-up a coterie of wallets. While they occur with the numbing regularity of sunrise, re-makes rarely surpass the original.

There are, of course, exceptions. John Huston's debut—The Maltese Falcon—is one. Howard Hawks' brilliant take on The Front Page (His Girl Friday) is another. And Richard Lester's 1973 reboot of The Three Musketeers successfully injected humor into the classic.

In the twenty-first century, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Painted Veil proved re-makes don't have to be a thoughtless whoring-out of the creative process or the shameless exploitation of those who love movies.

But on the whole, re-makes are just tarted-up and louder versions of the original that leave one asking “Why?”

Which brings me to the latest take on A Star Is Born.

There are millions of millennials to whom this story will appear new. And the presence of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper will have millions more swiping their credit cards and passing legal tender through box office windows.

As a marketing exercise, it is unassailable. But as a cinematic one? Not so much.

Beyond providing a nice payday for all involved, what's the point? It was told to perfection in 1954 and remains a classic.

But imagine the poor millennial who, forced to watch it, would remain unmoved simply because the characters don't carry i-Phones or use words like devastated. Bradley Cooper and company certainly have.

Half the fun I had pursuing my love of books and music and movies was getting outside of my comfort zone and delving into a time (or even a culture) well outside of my own. It gave my own life context and deepened my understanding on how we came to arrive at this point in the fashion that we did.

It taught me that we are more alike than different. Long story short, it stretched me.

Catering to short attention spans, presentism and a distaste for history sentences us to the kind of myopia that infests our political landscape, where our ignorance of anything that exists outside of our sphere of familiarity frequently curdles into suspicion and fear.

Even if it could benefit us. Even if we could learn from it.

In 1869, Mark Twain wrote in Innocents Abroad “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely. Broad, wholesome, charitable views can not be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of Earth.”

Stream the classic 1954 version on Netflix. Check out the DVD from your local library. Please. Pretend life is a Nike commercial and just do it.

You won't even need a yoga mat.

Poignant Words

"The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion it has taken place."

                                                                               George Bernard Shaw 

The Wind That Blows in Three Directions at Once

I've always been the curious type. So it's only natural that I try to understand things. Even Republicans.

As I observe the brain-damaged example currently in the White House, I have to wonder what became of one of the core tenets of Republican ideology. You know, the one about personal responsibility.

I'm not talking about washing your hands after using the bathroom (although that's always a good idea). No, I'm talking about the one which implies “I never needed any help from anyone—ever. I got everything I have by myself without any help from anybody. So keep your taxes and your subsidies and social programs out of my paycheck.”

Fantasies are wonderful things. They're like a guest house situated on a remote corner of property. Or a man cave. They're private places where we can unwind, stretch out and exhale. Places where we can pretend. Places where we can forget about getting the kids to soccer practice and the recurring check engine light in the car.

But fantasies only go so far.

Take the governor of a state who adamantly refuses to expand Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act, and cites state sovereignty as one of the unassailable touchstones of democracy.

But then a natural disaster strikes. And all that resolute self-sufficiency evaporates like water on a Phoenix sidewalk. I'll leave it to your supple imagination to puzzle-out the governor who is first in line for a hand-out.

And then there is America's most-profound purveyor of personal responsibility—our President.

The son of a wealthy developer who had his career jump-started with a fourteen-million dollar loan from daddy (how's that for rugged self-sufficiency?), Donnie asks that we overlook this and instead see him as he sees himself: as an amazing man gifted with an unerring prescience for making quick and incisive decisions.

Donnie's willingness to shoulder the yoke of responsibility is best illuminated when it comes to owning up to his failures. He takes full responsibility only for assigning blame, sounding like the youngest sibling who squeals on his older brothers and sisters.

Donnie is waylaid by the media and its relentless barrage of fake-news. Donnie is waylaid by a cabal of Democrats and their witch hunts. Donnie is waylaid by disloyal advisors and cabinet members. And Donnie is waylaid by corrupt Federal agencies. 

All of them conspire to make Sir Whine-a-Lot look bad. It never ends. No wonder the hardest working component of Donnie's physiology is his index finger. 

Paragon of personal responsibility that he is, Donnie is responsible only for his successes—such as they are.

(To be fair, he has proved himself consistently capable of finding his way from the private living quarters on the second floor of the White House to his offices on the first. So there's that.)

But every bad decision, every fumbled response and every tactical error is someone else's fault.

To use our President's favorite expression, it's rigged.

Who would know better than the guy who enlisted Vladimir Putin's hackers to help tilt the election his way?

Who would know better than the guy who made his businesses the portal through which anyone seeking access to the White House must pass?

Who would know better than the guy who gave himself and his businesses and his most-ardent sponsors a big, fat bri—I mean tax break?

Who would know better than the guy who granted immunity to the two most-potentially damaging witnesses in the Mueller investigation?

And who would know better than the guy who nominated a lap cat to sit on the Supreme Court, thereby guaranteeing him a friendly judge and jury should the Mueller investigation become a little too threatening?

Yeah, Donnie. It's rigged.

And however unintentional it is, it's refreshing to hear you finally speak the truth.

The Cosby Show (Social Media Edition)

In the abundant ugliness of twenty-first century America, it is often difficult to discern a single stool amidst the cesspool of shit. But every once in a while, a turd stands out.

And that would be the social media shaming of Geoffrey Owens, a former cast member of The Cosby Show, after he was discovered working at Trader Joe's.

I'd wager the person who “discovered” him was a.) young and b.) sheltered, with a terminal case of helicopter parents. This person has no idea of the struggles and travails life has in store for those of us who make it beyond childhood.

Which is why this person thought it would be funny to post Owens' picture on social media and laugh at his fall from fame and celebrity.

Fame is fickle. Success is fickle. Life is fickle. One minute you're walking along dead positive that life has a beat. The next it's a broken turntable with a tonearm that won't stay in the groove.

I'd like this person to tell me what he or she feels would have been appropriate for Mr. Owens after the acting gigs dried up. Welfare? Meth? Mom's basement?

Geoffrey Owens is doing what he has to do to keep a roof over his head and food on the table. Why is that not respected? Why are we laughing at this?

Is it because we're kept awake at night by the possibility that it could happen to us? Is this the nervous laugh of people so terrified by this outcome since they are—in all likelihood –a single paycheck removed from it themselves?

Or is it the sneering, knee-jerk meanness so many of us require to feel validated in this, the Dark Age of Trump?

When we laugh at a self-sustaining working man doing what he's gotta do to stay in the game, we are in deeper shit than we know.